Kernel buffer management

The kernel buffer is composed of many small buffers. Although the number of buffers is limited only by the amount of system memory, it's important to understand that this space must be managed carefully. If all of the events are being traced on an active system, the number of events can be quite large.

To allow the instrumented kernel to write to one part of the kernel buffer and store another part of it simultaneously, the kernel buffer is organized as a circular linked list. As the buffer data
reaches a high-water mark (about 70% full), the instrumented kernel module sends a signal to the data-capture program with the address of the buffer. The data-capture program can then retrieve the
buffer and save it in a storage location for offline processing or pass it to a data interpreter for realtime manipulation.
In either case, once the buffer has been emptied, it's once again available for use by the kernel.